Imagine how you'll feel

The GARAGE SALE

At a garage sale on South Hill, I saw a deer. A price tag was tied to it. I couldn’t read it though. The deer kept moving around the record player, behind the wading pool and a lamp. For a moment I wondered how it would do in our yard, but I bought a toaster instead.

TRANSPARENT APPLES

They grow on glass branches on trees that almost aren’t there. You could bump into one if you’re not careful. Sometimes all you see is the shadow of a tree. You’ll need to hold out your arms like a sleepwalker, feel for the switch and turn the tree on like a chandelier, making every ripe apple glow.

PRAYER

Oh, how we wait for an answer, as if the crooked aerial on the roof overhead can catch your voice, as if, if not that, the wind will deliver your message to me served in an old-fashioned way.

A FIRST-RATE FOOL

Once I read some stories on Eastlake Avenue. Like a first-rate fool, I thought up a great gag that was sure to wow the crowd. A pair of glasses with no lenses. Without knowing it, I went through the same routine as a 1936 comedy. Only no one was laughing. Anyway, I tried. I have enjoyed my time here among you and I have done my best to entertain you.

A HORSE NAMED CARL SANDBURG

An old white horse is riding the elevator of the Leopold. Nobody knows how it ended up in there. The crowd in the lobby watches the arrow as it rides between the floors. For a moment it rests on the 11th floor, then it’s moving two stories down, then somewhere else again. By night the people have gone, except for the clerk at the desk who has grown used to it.

Saluting Laura Vasyutynska

Saluting Good Deed Rain cover artist LAURA VASYUTYNSKA, whose amazing artwork has appeared on 5 of our books so far. Different Planet (2017); Homeless Sutra (2019); Almost Animals (2018); Fable (2018); Cosmonaut (2021):